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Wednesday, 29 March 2006

Terry Heaton writes: "Here is the latest in the ongoing series of essays, TV News in a Postmodern World. Those familiar with my work know that my deep concern in the midst of the enormous changes around us is for LOCAL broadcasters and LOCAL communities. My friends and contemporaries exist in this world, and most face an uncertain future. This essay looks at how well-funded internet start-up companies in the Media 2.0 space all deal from a global perspective, seeking to create communities outside geographic boundaries. ¶ While this is good for the start-ups and their investors, it may not be so healthy for our local communities, because it moves advertising money from inside geographic markets to distant places. And that's not good for local media companies. ¶ I don't have any easy answers for this, except to say that broadcast companies need to invest in 2.0 projects, only they need to take advantage of the local angles that the Google's of the world can't offer. I'd like to see the day when local venture capitalists and angel investors build such applications at the local level before scaling them through expansion -- perhaps in franchise form -- to other locations. ..." Link: The Pomo Blog. Another great essay by Heaton, who is a long-time commercial broadcaster. That's who he's writing about here, but I'd strongly recommend this for pubcasters as well -- especially if you read it in the context of his work with WKRN below. --Dennis

Terry Heaton writes: "Memo to broadcast networks: Your brands are tied to the broadcasting industry. You have history and baggage, especially as it relates to younger people. You cannot expect people to think of you otherwise, no matter how hard you try to redefine yourselves. You're broadcasters. That means yours are broadcasting brands. As such, they've served you well, but moving those brands to the web doesn't somehow make you something different. ..." Link: The Pomo Blog.

Diane Mermigas writes: "Debunking media myths is becoming an accepted and even required sport in this great age of change. It's good for the industry's collective soul. It makes it easier to understand why almost nothing in the future will be as it was, and that even the new conventional wisdom -- born of the Internet and digital broadband interactivity -- needs to be challenged. ..." Link: Hollywood Reporter.

Diane Mermigas writes: "Mass adoption of digital broadband technology has suddenly presented media-related companies with a big problem: how to accurately establish new financial expectations, user metrics, advertising and subscription fees and content value in a rapidly changing marketplace with no precedent. ¶ There is no easy or fast solution to any of these vexing issues. This period of trial and error has sent all budgeting and negotiations into a tailspin, leaving participants to make it up as they go. Because there is so much shakeout expected on so many levels across all industry sectors, there is good chance that some of the initial assumptions being made regarding the level of user and advertiser response and spending will be proved wrong, causing some financial angst. ..." Link: Hollywood Reporter.

David Lieberman writes: "In a move that could ignite a major debate about consumer "fair use" of TV programming, Cablevision Systems will unveil plans to test a service that gives cable subscribers the ability to record and time-shift shows using existing digital set-top boxes. ¶ Although it works just like TiVo and other digital video recorders (DVRs) — consumers choose in advance which shows to capture and can fast-forward through ads — the recording itself will be stored at the cable system, not on a hard drive in the consumer's home. ¶ The technology for what Cablevision calls its 'remote storage digital video recorder' (RS-DVR) 'is here today, and in Cablevision's case, we can use it to put DVR functionality in more than 2 million digital cable homes instantaneously, without ever rolling a truck or swapping out a set-top box,' COO Tom Rutledge says in a statement. ..." Link: USA Today.

Gilad Rosner writes: "NPR has selected Melodeo's Mobilcast platform to deliver a set of 45 of its podcasts to cell phones. NPR will get a branded, dedicated channel in the Mobilcast application. Mobilcast allows podcasters to easily add their feed to the Mobilcast directory, and users of the service can search, stream, and download podcasts to their phones. ..." Link: Droxy. Disclosure: The regional public radio network that I manage among other things originates one of the podcasts on NPR.org and I'm a member of its board. --Dennis

The always-readable Terry Heaton is now listenable, too -- the guest on BusinessWeek's Cutting Edge podcast (Heather Green does the interview). He's talking about his work with WKRN-TV, which has created a blogging network (including an ad network) called Nashville Is Talking. Very interesting business idea. Link: BusinessWeek. --Dennis (asking Terry if he needs an assistant for the Oslo gig -- jeg snakker lite gran norsk).

Monday, 27 March 2006

CNET has a video showing a new in-car broadband system due out this summer using Verizon's EV-DO 3G broadband and MSN TV. It creates a mobile hotspot, so you can watch video, listen to any Internet radio station (WGBH-FM's call letters are briefly displayed), or run your wireless laptop. Pretty neat. Link: CNET. --Dennis

Sunday, 26 March 2006

As you read about unlicensed use of spectrum for wireless broadband services, it's helpful to consider developments in radio technology that are enabling such use. Steven Ashley has a good overview of "smart radios" in the March edition of Scientific American. He writes: "Your favorite radio station transmits on a specific frequency. When you set your receiver to so many cycles per second, you tune the antenna circuit to pluck that station's frequency out of the ether. If other transmitters interfere with your reception, your only real option is to wait out the problem. In the best of all worlds, though, your receiver would respond by switching immediately to an open backup frequency that carries your station's broadcast. Such a solution is beyond today's radio technology, and perhaps that example makes the problem seem trivial. But now imagine that interference is interrupting an urgent, emergency cell-phone call. In that case, rapid transfer of the call to a clear cell channel would be more than merely convenient--it might save a life. ¶ Engineers are now working to bring that kind of flexible operating intelligence to future radios, cell phones and other wireless communications devices. During the coming decade, cognitive radio technology should enable nearly any wireless system to locate and link to any locally available unused radio spectrum to best serve the consumer. Employing adaptive software, these smart devices could reconfigure their communications functions to meet the demands of the transmission network or the user. ..." Link: Scientific American. --Dennis

The HD Technology Update e-newsletter did an interview with technology consultant S. Merrill Weiss on the occasion of the upcoming well-deserved NAB 2006 Television Engineering Achievement Award. It makes for interesting reading, including the following: "... What will happen to the spectrum in the political process? I’m not in possession of such a good crystal ball that I can divine that. Broadcasters, however, need to think about their businesses as bifurcated. It used to be that owning a broadcast license was a license to deliver content, and that was the only way to get that content to consumers. ..." The first part of the interview was published early this month as'Way-out-of-the-box thinking’ may be critical to success of broadcasters. Link: BroadcastEngineering. The second part of the interview came out last weeek asMake the most of the '20MB/s pipe' today, or face uncertainty tomorrow. Link: BroadcastEngineering. Thanks to Bob Miller, who posted these links to the OpenDTV list.